


Fool's Gold

by Schattenfeuer



Category: Nightmare Harem (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Gen, Kitsune!Noel, M/M, Other, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26012491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenfeuer/pseuds/Schattenfeuer
Summary: No good deed goes unpunished, you would do well  to keep that in mind.
Relationships: Noel/Reader
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

You had no idea why people kept saying to avoid this particular piece of the forest. All in all, you had little idea of the small village in general, since you had just moved across the country, across oceans and into this quaint little piece of countryside heaven. Your house had certainly seen better days, but you knew what you were getting into when you bought it, this was meant as a hideaway of sorts, something to take a breather and enjoy the silence and calmness outside of the big city, in a different country and free from the burdens of your old life. 

The people were nice enough, if not a bit behind the times, you could still see many of those old good luck charms and remnants of a time filled with suspicion and fishwife tales cluttered the small shrines outside of those adorable, wooden houses. And of course, the fox statues. They were everywhere, small, big, detailed or clumsily made, just plain everywhere. You could not be surprised to find one hidden underneath a thick layer of dust somewhere in your shed, that was if you went out to look, which you had no desire to. 

At the moment, you were too busy carrying the last box filled with things from your old life into your new home, clothes and books and all the knickknack that you just could not bring yourself to abandon, like your demanding family and your toxic relationship. In a way, you had run away, true, but you felt free now, able to breathe without constant degrading or pushing to become someone you clearly were not. 

Hours bled into each other while you were busy tidying up the fixer upper that was your home, while you were busy digging and sorting through the embarrassingly small number of boxes and you only stopped because the light of the sun had slowly faded more and more until only thin veil of greyish light was able to reach your window through the canopy of nearby trees. Outside, you could hear the wind playing with the countless small chimes and wooden luck charms, in a way it sounded like a curious little melody, one that would take some time to get used to. 

That night, you slept badly, you were tossing and turning and the times you actually sat up, drenched in cold sweat and with your chest heaving, you swore you could see red eyes blinking back at you in the darkness of your bedroom. However, every time you switched the light on, the eyes and the blob like shape to which they belonged, disappeared, vanished like they were just pieces of your overly active imagination. Pushing this on the stress of the move, you shook your head, splashed icy water onto your cheeks and stared at your bleary eyed reflection in the bathroom mirror. You looked bad, pale and with dark shadows underneath your eyes, dark enough to pass as bruises if one were to look for only a split second. Your lips were chapped and pulled into a taunt line, bad memories still lingering in the back of your mind like a foul aftertaste. 

Taking another deep breath, you turned away, you didn’t want to see the stranger in the mirror any longer, this was not you, not the you that you remembered. This was a hollowed out wreck that had just crawled out of a toxic, hostile environment. You were here to lick your wounds and heal, to get better, before you would continue your way onwards. Wherever your path may lead you. Heavy thoughts hung over you for the rest of the night and when you finally fell asleep, you dreamt of foxes hunting squeaking mice and hunters with loaded rifles. 

The next morning was not getting any better, you noticed that you were out of nearly everything edible expect a package of old tea leaves and two slices of dry bread. Armed with your meager breakfast, you still decided to watch the sunrise from your new porch, maybe then the day would become better soon? As you chewed without much enthusiasm on your bread, a flash of silver caught your attention as it disappeared in the thicket behind your broken down garden fence. With your curiousity awoken, you left the safety of the porch behind, stumbled over weeds and rotten planks of wood until thorns and thicket scratched your bare legs and you stood at the dark entrance of the forest. 

The silver shadow was long gone and before you loomed row upon row of trees, dark and ominous like a mouth ripped wide open to devour you whole. Shaking your head, you were just about to leave it be, to return to your boring breakfast and forget about the whole thing, when a pathetic whimper reached your ears. It sounded like a mix between a heart wrenching whine and the sobs of a child, drew you in and before you knew it, you had crossed this invisible border into the forest. 

Climbing over moss covered rocks and fallen trees, you kept throwing anxious glances over your shoulder, scared to loose sight of the treeline and therefore your way home. What you found, shocked you, rooked you to your very core. Tangled up in the rusted jaws of an old, long forgotten trap, you found an elegant creature, thrashing in pain and sleek, silver fur covered in thick splotches of fresh crimson. Whoever had placed this trap here, had clearly forgotten about it not too long after, because even from the distance you could see the rust eating away at the iron, yet the jagged curves of this wicked design were still holding on strong, keeping together and the fox caught. 

Without thinking, you stepped closer, hand reaching out before you knew it and just in time you managed to pull your fingers back again, as the scared creature snapped at them, you could feel the hotness of its puffing breath fanning over your fingertips and the vibration of his jaws snapping shut. Crouching down, you tried again, this time slower, kept within line of sight of the fox and always vigilant for a second attack from the shaking creature. It kept watching you, ears pinned back in distress and fangs bared, but when all you did was touch the cold iron of the trap, its low snarl slowly faded into ragged pants of pain. 

You thanked whatever deity was listening and willing to lend their ear for the poor condition of the trap, which allowed you to easily bent it open by using your body’s weight as leverage. However, the steady stream of coppery scented crimson that kept flowing out of the foxes front leg, was causing your stomach to tie itself into a tight knot, you were unsure if the creature could survive on its own, if it would even survive the next hour. 

All you had on your person was your sleepwear, soiled by blood and stained with dirt, yet you did not hesitate to rip off strips of fabric, before you froze mid motion, unsure how to put the bandage onto the wild creature, you had little idea of how to treat wounds, nevertheless the wounds of a forest animal. Trying your luck nonetheless, you edged ever closer to the curled up, silver colored canine, only stopped moving when it glared at you from bright red eyes. Too cold, too intelligent. Those eyes were unnerving you, more than the blood staining the fox’s muzzle. Gulping down a mouthful of air, you still reached out and were pleasantly surprised when he actually allowed you to wrap the torn fabric around his wounded leg. 

It was that day, that you gained a new housemate, in the loosest sense of the word. While you were able to pick up the exhausted, wounded fox and carry it back to your home, it refused cooperation in any kind when you tried to place it into your car to drive it to a vet. And it also started to growl when you started to call several vets for a house call. Strangely enough, every time you mentioned the name of the village you lived in and a fox as the patient, they couldn’t decline fast enough, as if there was a curse resting over this quaint little town. 

All this talk about curses and the superstitions of the town’s people was starting to rub you the wrong way, you felt a spark of paranoia now, every time you left your home, it felt as if the blood of the saved fox was still clinging to your skin. Visible only to the eyes of strangers, behind your back, people started to talk in hushed whispers about you, despite your best efforts to remain kind and polite. At least, the fox was doing well, only days after you had pulled him out of the trap, you noticed a suspicious lack of wounds and while it did little to ease your rising fear, you still were relieved that he had survived. 

The feeling appeared to be mutual, for the small critter started to follow you around the house, at first at a certain distance, then, the longer you two spent time together, the more bolt he grew, until he was glued at your side like a fur covered shadow. Had you thought that people were acting strange before, now they were downright avoiding even looking at you, even the cashier in the local shop refused to interact with you beyond what was absolutely necessary to do their job. This was not what you had in mind when you had thought about running off into a strange country. 

The unease became worse when you woke up one night to the feeling of a stranger’s hand caressing your cheek, to the feeling of warm breath against your lips. You thought that you saw red eyes blinking back at you, but when your eyelashes rose again from a frantic blink, the figure was gone, you were left startled and disturbed. That night, you curled up together with your canine friend, which had crawled under your blanket the moment he heard your whimpers of distress. 

Your dreams became only worse after that, the feeling of someone being close, of cradling you in an embrace, too tight and warm for your liking. This was too real, too much, you could feel the lingering sensation of skin against your own every time you woke up from yet another lucid dream. And it didn’t remained with embraces alone, soon the stranger in your dreams started to nuzzle into your neck, your hair, his hands growing steadily bolder with each passing night. One night, you woke up to the feeling of sharp fangs piercing the thin skin stretching so alluringly over your collarbone and when you sprinted into the bathroom, you saw with horror a pretty, dotted double bow of red spots tainting your shirt. You were too cowardly to pull down the collar, to check if there really were imprints of teeth in your skin. 

Petting your dearest and only friend’s fur, you started to doubt your own sanity, suddenly you could hear steps everywhere in your house. One day, you tried to find something, only to find it in a spot where you definitely had not put it. And the talking grew worse. You could hear them, they started to point the fingers at you and you had no idea why. Flashbacks of your past came to haunt you during your waking hours, lucid dreams about a phantom lover robbed you of rest at night, your health was taking a decline and so was your sanity. 

Somewhere along the line, you noticed that your beloved Fox had disappeared, without a word or a sign, he had just left, the blankets at the end of your bed empty and your house unusually silent without the steady click of claws on the polished wooden floor. Worse, you started to feel vulnerable, unprotected and open to attacks. 

And then the stone came sailing through your window. You screamed as it hit your head, blood running down your temple and pain flashing like a poison through your veins. People had gathered in front of your house, screaming, shouting and the first stone was followed by more, fists hammered against your door and your heart froze over in sheer terror. A madness had taken over the people of this town, you were sure, they were out for your blood and you did not knew why. All you did was save a fox, nurse it back to health. You thought that foxes were seen as holy in this village, with all the statues and symbols. 

When the first axe hacked mercilessly through your door, you stopped trying to figure this insanity out and turned to run. Trampling down the flowerbeds you had repaired in painstaking detail work, you vaulted over your fence and headed straight for the forest, no wild beast could be worse than this mob of fanatic, as they shouted gibberish and demanded for your blood. In the darkness of the forest, every root looked like a noose, out to trip you up, every twig hitting your face and shoulders was a hand clawing at your skin, as your lungs threatened to burn you up from within, a flash of silver appeared, rushed alongside you. 

At first, you mistook it for your fox, who had finally returned to your side and joy bloomed in the barren soil that had become your terrified heart. The fragile flower that had been your hope, your joy, was squashed as the silver turned out to belong to a boy, no, a young man, clad in robes long out of time and fashion, he gracefully kept pace with you, jumped over any obstacle and when he noticed your panicked gaze on him, he flashed you a short, almost sweet smile before taking your hand in his. 

His touch was too warm, too familiar in a way that made the fine hair at the back of your neck stand up, yet you didn’t struggle as he pulled you along, away from the shouts and the sounds of a mob after you. Suddenly, there was cobblestone under your bare feet and then polished wood, the air no longer smelled of the forest but of incense and spices, sweet and intoxicating and thick in the air, choking you as your body finally capitulated and you just stopped. At the same time as your knees hit the polished wooden floor underneath you, the young man turned towards you, red eyes large and shining in the golden light of a dozen floating candles. 

This was it. you had finally turned mad. A hysteric giggle bubbled up your throat and spilled over your lips like shattered pearls, you felt tears starting to stream down your cheeks as you clawed at your face, shaking frantically your head. The young man, angelic features shifting into a grimace of unease, knelt before you, clawed hands reaching out so gently at you. He pulled away your hands from your face and you finally saw the ears, silver furred and pointy, the elegant fan of nine bushy tails spread behind his narrow back. 

“What...are you...where am I?”, you shrieked,this was a dream, a dream, it had to be. But his hands pinching your cheeks and his hot tongue lapping up your blood and your tears showed you that it was not. He speckled your contorted features with butterfly kisses, brushed your hair back and held you uncomfortably close, no matter how hard you pulled at the back of his robe. “Let...let me go...what do you even...want from me?!”

“I want you.”, he sounded so young and at the same time inhuman, there was a lingering of power in his voice that shook and shattered you, his words poured into your ear like warm honey and at the same time, they were iron chains, wrapped around your ankles to drag you down, deeper and deeper into the swamp of terror forming in your chest. Your struggles ceased and so did the tightness of his grip, he nuzzled against your neck in delight, pulled down the collar of your shirt and showed the string of scars over your collarbone. “You wear my mark so perfectly. I knew you were the right one.”

“For what?”, what did he want from you? This strange, human shaped creature that was at the same time so completely different from anything human. He looked at you, through you, his eyes blank and filled with a dark longing at the same time as his hands cupped your face, scratched and stained from your wild chase through the woods. Here, in this temple like dimension of scent and golden light, he became your sole focus. “What do you want from me?”

“Everything.”


	2. Chapter 2

The sliding door was ripped open harshly and the echo of it rippled through the solemn atmosphere of this old temple like a stone cast into a still pond. You didn’t even hesitate, instead sprinted out of the room in which you had been kept for the past several days, weeks, maybe even months? Time had the strange habit of bleeding into each other, while you were dizzy and confused and scared. How long had it been since he had brought you here? 

Since the people from the village had chased you out of your home with pitchforks and knives, out for your blood. You didn’t know, but when you looked down at your hands and feet, bare, they were free from any scratches or scrapes, as pristine as the day you were born, even old scars and calluses had disappeared, which just proved to you that this was not normal, it had been the balm he had insisted on rubbing onto your hurt limbs. And you had let him, at first, because you were scared, twitched and flinched every time he moved. 

Noel had been nothing but kind to you, but his kindness was only a mask, a facade, you could sense something deeper, more meaningful hiding behind this. He was acting that way because he wanted something from you and you did not believed for a single second that it was you he wanted. You were just an ordinary person, granted, your family had left you behind and you had just clawed your way out of a toxic relationship, had run across the globe to hide and lick your wounds, but that was nothing that made you special in any kind of way. 

Small twigs broke under your bare feet as you chased across a run down courtyard, stones poked your soles and you could hear something clatter behind you. No doubt that the noise of your escape had woken the fox eared man who had brought you here to begin with, but you didn’t stop, down a winding pathway, you barely noticed the ruins of the temple all around you as you made your way deeper into the forest. Was it day? Or night? How long had he kept you inside that shrine room?

You vaguely remember cold food being brought to you, slightly wrinkled fruits and hard bread, it all tasted like ash and sand on your tongue, as fear dulled your tastebuds and while he had certainly tried to appear hospitable, the way he looked at you like you were a snack ready to be eaten, had crept you out. So no, you’d rather take your chances in the forest, would rather fall down a cliff in this twilight than stay any longer in the same room as Noel. You splashed through a narrow stream, jumped over fallen tree logs and climbed down stony hills, all without seeing even a hint of civilization. Even the light was acting strange, lighting up before dulling to near complete darkness again, your mind was spinning and your legs hurt just as badly as your lungs, as you kept running, falling and scrambling to get back up again.

After what felt like hours of running aimlessly, you finally slowed down to a slow plodding along, your chest heaving and your throat dry from the sudden exercise you had forced yourself through, but strangely enough, you felt comforted by the isolation of being lost, all alone in the forest, all around you nothing but trees and thicket. This was a fine place to be, any place was fine as long as it was away from the shrine. Taking a deep breath to slow the hammering of your heart, you leaned against the nearby tree, took solace in the cool shade and the gentle caress of the wind. Enough that you slowly started to slide down until you curled up between the roots, your knees pressed against your chest and your arms wrapped tightly around your legs, you couldn’t see the world and it couldn’t see you, a childish thought that still helped you sort through your twisted and tattered thoughts. 

You were in a strange place, alone, all you had on you were the clothes the fox, Noel, had given you and he had insisted on keeping you close for whatever reason. There was no way you could actually survive out here on your own, you were a pencil pusher, not some survivalist, born and raised for the outdoor life. Just as despair rose up from the tar pit inside your empty and broken heart, a hand reached out of nowhere to gently pat your head. If you weren’t so exhausted, you would have jumped out of your skin from sheer surprise and terror. 

“Don’t cry”, Noel was crouching right next to you, ears twitching and his nine tails elegantly fanned out, moving slowly to settle around your shivering form. Despite his clumsy attempts and low plea not to, you could feel the first tears rising up again, wiped angrily your eyes with your sleeve and gnashed your teeth. There it was again, this intense gaze from him, the one that kept freaking you out, because he looked so intent, so determined to crawl underneath your skin. “I don’t like it when you cry.”

“Then, maybe, you should have left me alone”, you snarled back, too feed up by now to be scared anymore. You pushed against his chest and actually managed to topple him over, before scrambling back onto your leaden, heavy legs. You were hellbent to keep on running, even if he would chase after you nonetheless, but before you could even make a single step, he snapped his fingers and suddenly, you were back where you had just fled from. Back inside the lavish, dusty temple, with its floating candles and japanese architecture, soft pillows under your feet and all dirt which had stained your skin had disappeared like dust in the wind. All energy left your body and you just collapsed there and then, would have crumbled to the floor had he not moved quickly, caught you and pressed you against him.

“But I can’t.”, he admitted, a repeat of what he had told you before. Your head was swimming and you just accepted his too tight embrace with silent dignity, this was all you could do and in a very twisted way, it felt good. You couldn’t remember the last time someone hugged you, simply because they wanted to and not because of misguided obligation. Before you knew it, your hands came up and you held fists full of his robe in your hands, pulled him in rather than push him away like you had done before. He made a low sound, chittering like the fox you had nursed back to health when you had scritched it behind its ears. A sound of enjoyment and when he started to nuzzle into your neck, you heaved a long, exhausted sigh. 

“Why me?”, you couldn’t wrap your head around it, no matter how often he kept saying the same thing. Part of you wondered if he would answer with the same familiar phase once more. He lifted his head to look you in the eye, one hand cupping your cheek and his thumb brushing against your lower lip. There was something in his eyes that made you uncomfortable and warm at the same time. 

“Because it had to be you. No one else but you”, now that was a new one. You actually expected him to wink at you and say that this was a secret. His touch was light, reverent and gentle, warming you to your core, even if you didn’t ask for it. It lulled you in and took away the sharpness of the world outside of his arms. “Just you.”

You didn’t remember who initiated it, only that suddenly, you felt his lips on yours, warm and insistent, like the rest of him, he tasted strange on the tip of your tongue, neither sweet nor spicy but something in between, something not known to you. A high pitched keen left your lips and was swallowed by his hungry mouth, you felt more his response than heard it, a rumble coming from deep within his narrow chest as he pressed you down into the small mountain of pillows, still keeping you as close as humanly possible. 

He pulled at your clothing, hard enough to rip it with his claws and laying bare more of your skin, the sudden snap of mood left your head spinning and still, you welcomed him with your arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Closing your eyes, you couldn’t help but imagine, but give in and simply enjoy the warmth he kept spreading over you. 

“Just give in to me.”


End file.
